NEW YORK – Donald Trump said in a social media post that he expects to be arrested on Tuesday as a New York prosecutor looks into charges in a case examining hush money paid to women who allege sexual contact with the former president
Trump said in a post on his Social Truth network early Saturday that “illegal leaks” from the Manhattan district attorney’s office indicate that “THE MOST COOKED REPUBLICAN CANDIDATE AND FORMER PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES WILL BE ARRESTED THIS TUESDAY. A WEEK.”
Messages left Saturday with the district attorney’s office were not immediately returned.
Representatives for Trump did not immediately respond to calls for comment.
In his posts, he repeated his lies that the 2020 presidential election he lost to US President Joe Biden was stolen and urged his followers to “PROTEST, BUILD BACK OUR NATION! “
That language reflected the message from the President at the time leading up to the deadly riot at the US Capitol on January 6, 2021.
Rebels loyal to then-US president Donald Trump try to break through a police blockade at the Capitol in Washington, January 6, 2021. (Julio Cortez/AP)
If the Manhattan district attorney were to indict Trump, the 76-year-old would be the first former president to be charged with a crime.
Trump’s lawyer told CNBC on Friday afternoon that his client would agree to face criminal charges if indicted by a Manhattan grand jury.
Law enforcement officials in New York are making security preparations for the possibility that Trump could be indicted.
No time frame for the secret grand jury’s work in the case, including any possible vote on indicting the former president, has been publicly announced.
Trump’s post echoes one made last summer when he broke the news on Truth Social that the FBI was searching his home as part of an investigation into the mishandling of classified documents.
The grand jury in Manhattan heard from witnesses, including Trump’s former lawyer Michael Cohen, who say he ordered payments in 2016 to two women to keep them quiet about sexual encounters they said they had with Trump a decade earlier .
Michael Cohen arrives at the district attorney’s office to testify before a grand jury in New York, Monday, March 13, 2023. (AP Photo/Yuki Iwamura)
Trump denies the contacts took place, says he did nothing wrong, and has dismissed the investigation as a “witch hunt” by a Democratic prosecutor bent on sabotaging the Republican 2024 presidential campaign.
Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s office appears to be looking into whether any state law was broken in connection with the payments or the way the Trump company compensated Cohen for his work to keep the women’s allegations quiet .
Daniels and at least two former Trump aides — onetime political adviser Kellyanne Conway and former spokeswoman Hope Hicks — are among the witnesses who have met with prosecutors in recent weeks.
Cohen said, at Trump’s direction, he arranged payments totaling $280,000 to porn actress Stormy Daniels and Playboy model Karen McDougal. According to Cohen, the payments were to buy their silence about Trump, who was then in the middle of his first presidential campaign.
Times of Israel staff contributed to this report.
